


K-9

by You_are_not_my_division



Series: The Multiverse Theory [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awesome Mrs. Hudson, Best Friends John and Sherlock, Dog John, Lonely Sherlock, Mention of Minor Character Suicide, Other, army John, casefic, not romantic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:25:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7661245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_are_not_my_division/pseuds/You_are_not_my_division
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where John’s an ex-military working dog without an owner, and Sherlock is a consulting detective without a partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	K-9

_**The one where John’s an ex-military working dog without an owner, and Sherlock is a consulting detective without a partner.** _

\--

 

“Oh, _Sherlock!_ So good to see you,” Mrs. Hudson chimed, tinkering around the fringes of Sherlock’s consciousness--noticed, but not focused on. Sherlock’s attention, rather, flicked around the hallway, calmly collecting tidbits of data. 

“Ah, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock smiled, reorienting his attention. “Wonderful to see you.”

“The same, dearie. It’s been entirely too long since I’ve seen you! Come in, come in! Have a look at the flat, tell me what you think.”

Sherlock stepped into 221 Baker Street, immediately inhaling the thick, unmistakable smell of _dog_. Slips of dog hair littered the apartment, though more at the top steps than the bottom, as if the dog sat at the break between the flights of stairs more than he walked up and down them. Mrs. Hudson herself was rather absent of dog hair off of the very bottom of her pants, suggesting the dog’s resistance to contact, establishing the dog as—

“His name’s John,” Mrs. Hudson interrupted. “The dog. I’m sure you’re deduced he’s here by now. We’ve a dog here. That’s why it’s been so hard, selling the flat. Come on up and see him.”

Sherlock followed Mrs. Hudson up the steps silently, crossing into 221B. The flat’s atmosphere was thick with dust and stale lack of use, barren aside from the mismatched chairs, sofa, and desk. Barren except for the dog that sat, stoic and watchful, as a gargoyle next to the fireplace.

\--

John was a smart dog.

That was what it had come down to, ultimately—why he was chosen to be sent to Afghanistan. He was never the fastest dog, or the strongest of the pack, but John was smart, and, like all of his packmates, he was loyal. John was smart enough to know when to run or to press forward. John was smart enough to know when to protest or when to lie quietly. John was smart enough to know when to be disloyal to his owner. John was smart enough to save his owner’s life.

 

The Big Man crouched in front of John, a strange sort of equality, a _they-don’t-understand-us-but-we-can-understand-each-other_ empathetic sort of look, caught in his bright blue gaze. Big Man smelled vaguely like coffee, some sort of sharp, indiscernible odor that pinched his nose, and Mrs. Hudson. Big Man did not try to pet John, as if he were a regular dog, like so many other humans did. Big Man was like John—smart. John could tell that from the first moment.

Big Man stuck out his fist, but not to harm John. His hand hovered right in front of John’s nose, giving John no choice but to further investigate his smells. Underneath the external sharp odors were the smells of the Big Man himself—musky, manly smells, but not overbearing. There were no smells of other dogs on the Big Man. When the Big Man reached under John’s neck to see his tag, John did not flinch. Not even a bit.

\--

“PTSD.”

“Sorry, dearie?” Mrs. Hudson hummed from the kitchen, nervously touching up a few items on the counter to give the illusion of organization. “Oh, Johnie? He’s quite a skittish boy, isn’t he? Flinches back every time I try to pet him. See, Harry Watson was my last tennant here. A wonderful woman, but… a war veteran. She was shot in the shoulder, invalided back to London. John was a military dog with her out in Afghanistan, and he came back with her. She didn’t do well… fell into—you know, alcoholism, some drugs, bad groups of people. She…” 

“Killed herself five weeks ago,” Sherlock finished, pulling back slowly from John.

“Yes. Harry was the sweetest thing, never asked for anything. The only thing she ever, _ever_ asked of me was that, if something happened, that I’d take care of John. He lives in this flat, too, dearie. He rarely leaves, and I won’t make him leave. I—I won’t!”

Mrs. Hudson stifled down tears from her empathetic outburst, brushing off the fit gradually. Sherlock kept his eyes on John, filled with investigative probing, and John kept his eyes on Sherlock, laden with wary curiosity.

Mrs. Hudson eventually continued, recomposing herself. “Poor thing. He used to be so loyal to Harry, he was. Didn’t move for three days after she passed. I left out food for him, but he never ate. He still doesn’t eat like he ought, a big dog like him. Why, when I had a dog like him—a German shepherd, just like John—the dog used to eat a full cupful of food, three times a day. Ate more than my entire family. But John, he’s more of the calm type than my dog ever was, more of the… sitting down and watching type. He always was, but even more so now. He’s gotten better the last week or so, follows me around when I do chores sometimes. Sits at the top landing and watches me work, like a guardian angel. I’ve brought him to the park, once, even, hoped he’d go running around but stayed right by my side the whole—”

Mrs. Hudson abruptly stopped speaking when she walked back into the living room and noticed that Sherlock had left.

 

\--

 

Sherlock settled into life at 221B gradually, establishing a peaceful equilibrium with John. Time he didn’t spend updating _The Science of Deduction_ he spent researching into military dogs, into German shepherds and canine PTSD. John was clearly afflicted with the later—the one time that Sherlock had mistakenly slammed the flat door in frustration, John cowered and whimpered, receding into the kitchen, growling when Sherlock came too close. They fell into a strange balance of give and take. Though Sherlock didn’t assume responsibility for John’s care, he was liberal to hand him scraps of food and occasional dog treats that he’d buy at the supermarket, and had developed a habit to rattling off deductions to John. John’s understanding, steady look quickly replaced the blank gaze of his skull. Slowly, John began to ghost behind Sherlock when he fluttered around the apartment, curling up to nap a few feet from the couch when Sherlock sat for hours in his mind palace.

Sherlock tested different possible languages to uncover which John had been trained in—German, Czech, Dutch, French—for a full week before he could uncover it. John, who was nearly as stoic as Sherlock in times, quickly proved loyal to military hand signals, and, slowly, began reacting to Sherlock’s Dutch commands, as if choosing when or when not to obey. There was a fragile connection—not quite loyalty, more further than flatmates—when Lestrade arrived.

“How’s John getting on then, dearie?” Mrs. Hudson inquired softly, fluttering about the flat. John—who’d been sitting much closer to Sherlock the last few days than usual, only a foot or so away from the man’s leg—watched her warily as Sherlock stood at the window, eyes softly closed as he flicked absentmindedly through the facts of a case. “Looks quite attached to you. John never got that close to me, not if he could help it.” She continued to flutter about the kitchen, grabbing a newspaper as she walked back towards Sherlock. “What about these suicides then, Sherlock? Thought they’d be right up your street. Three, exactly the same.”

“Four,” Sherlock stated blankly, speaking for the first time in three days. “There’s been a fourth. And something’s… different.”

\--

John smelled the New Man before he heard him coming up the stairs or saw him. New Man was much more earthy than Sherlock, smelling more like thick cologne and sweat than the sharp chemical smell he'd associated with Sherlock.

“Where?” Big Man—most people said ‘Sherlock’ pointedly when they spoke to him, a word that John had only heard when around the Big Man, and John assumed that was his name—snapped.

“Brixton, Lauriston Gardens,” New Man’s raspy voice carried. John felt the hair at his neck raise slightly at New Man’s unfamiliarity. John sat silently between Sherlock and New Man.

“What’s new about this one?”

“Left a note,” New Man muttered. “Will you come?”

“Not in a police car. I’ll be right behind.”

New Man left.

Sherlock suddenly jumped, frightening John slightly with his sudden energy. “Brilliant! Four serial suicides, and now a note!” Sherlock yelled, before leaning down and scratching John’s ears affectionately. “Oh, John, it’s Christmas! Mrs. Hudson, I’ll be late. Might need some food,” he added as he rushed through the space, pulling on his big, thick coat. 

“Not your housekeeper,” Mrs. Hudson said as she walked out.

After rushing from one place to another, Sherlock hurried to the door.

Sherlock paused, for just a moment, and turned back towards John. Sherlock’s hand swung out to his side, before coming in towards his chest, and he softly spoke, _“Hier.”_

John, without hesitation, ran forward—the first time he’d run in weeks—to follow after Sherlock. 

\--

It was a bit difficult to get the cab to take Sherlock with John as a passenger, but after Sherlock’s consistent lie that John was his service dog and that he could be fined for refusing Sherlock service, the cabbie acquiesced and drove off. John sat, stoic, in the passenger seat across from Sherlock, nervously watching the London scenery pass by.

The drive was quick, and John followed Sherlock out the car. He trotted directly next to Sherlock, steady and obedient, as the pair made their way toward the death.

“Hello, freak,” Donovan sneered.

“I’m here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock responded coldly.

“Why?”

“I was invited.”

_“Why?”_

“I think he’d like me to come take a look.”

“Well, you know what I think?”

“Always, Sally,” Sherlock grinned, passing under the police tape. 

“Who’s this?” Sally snapped.

“Colleague of mine. John Watson.”

“A colleague,” Sally deadpanned. “It’s a _dog._ ”

“Yes. Startling deduction, Sally, quite revolutionary.”

“Only damned colleague you can ever get,” she scowled, before lifting his radio. “Freak’s here, bringing him in.”

Lestrade met him at the front of the building, watching John with an aggravated look. “Sherlock, you can’t bring a dog in. I can get in enough trouble, letting _you_ in here, you can’t just bring a—”

“ _Hier_ , John” Sherlock interrupted, brushing past Lestrade and beginning up the steps.

“Jesus Christ,” Lestrade muttered, following Sherlock up. 

\--

John did not like this Bad Place.

It was dark, and smelled like the rotting death that he was supposed to bark about during the Before Times. The Before Times were much hotter, though, and there was much more of the bad smell, and John quickly figured that his barking would not be appreciated in this Bad Place, and so he remained silently glued to Sherlock’s feet.

 _Zit_ , Sherlock said, when they came to the room where the rotting death smell was. _Blijf._ John did as he was told and sat in the doorway and stayed in his spot.

Sherlock fluttered around the body that was laying across the floor. John's instinct said to fight against the training he had to bark out violently when he smelled the rotting death. Stay quiet now, his instincts said. John had trusted his instinct in the Before Times, and he had saved his Harry’s life.

It was a very very very hot day, even for the Before Times. The loud _bang, bang, bang_ assault came as a complete shock to everyone, and his Harry called him to stand guard next to her. John did, of course. John followed his Harry out of the medic’s tent. John followed his Harry towards the loud, frightening, clashing sounds. John had always been loyal to what his Harry said to do, but his Harry did not see the Enemy Man hiding to their left. His Harry had expected the Enemy Men to be in front of them, but this Enemy Man was not. John disobeyed his Harry and jumped at her, knocking her down as an especially loud _bang_ fired. John could not remember much of that. John could not remember much of anything between the time of that shot and arriving in London.

John quickly returned to the moment at hand when the New Man—not very new any longer, but John did not know his name yet—walked into the room.

Sherlock began speaking, very quickly, the way he sometimes did. Usually, Sherlock would keep eye contact with John when he spoke this way, but instead, Sherlock kept looking at the bad smelling body on the floor and occasionally up to the New Man.

Things began to happen quickly. Very quickly. Too quickly for John to keep up. His ears slowly flattened towards his head as he slightly cowered in the doorway, but he kept his position the way Sherlock told him to. 

Sherlock suddenly, however, rushed out the door, flying past John. The New Man stayed up at the top of the stairs as Sherlock rushed down them, his smell gradually fading.

New Man slowly followed Sherlock down the stairs.

John stayed still. Sherlock told him to stay. John stayed.

John was slightly hidden by the door frame, and none of the other humans seemed to notice him. Very few of them walked into the room, and only to take pictures and set up small yellow signs around the body. They did not notice John.

John stayed still. Sherlock would come back.

Fifteen minutes later, Sherlock had not come back.

An hour later, John began to think Sherlock may not come back.

Two hours later, John disobeyed Sherlock and stood, dodging legs as he padded down the stairs and sulked out the door. There was no smell of Sherlock outside. 

John began to walk.

John was not in a very busy area. The Big Machines that rolled down the extra wide sidewalk passed every so often and sometimes let out large honks, like the geese he chased as a puppy, but few people walked past him as he trotted silently down the street. It was hard to navigate his way towards home. He did not know where he was. He did not know how far home was, nor which direction it was in, but he walked. He eventually made it into a slightly busier part of London—busy enough that children reached out towards him and adults started down at him pitifully. They were all strange humans, new, untrustworthy, and so John continued, hoping to find his home.

John smelled Sherlock.

John quickly turned as the door of a black car opened next to him, and a woman with a blue sweater in her hands stepped out. “ _Hier_ ,” she commanded, her voice domineering and assertive. John did as the Strange Woman, with her scarf smelling like Sherlock, said to.

He sat in the back of the black car, letting the woman securely wrap the blue scarf around his neck. It smelled like Sherlock and calmed his nerves significantly. John watched scenery bleed by as the car carried on down the dark road.

\--

Sherlock was sitting awkwardly on the couch, deep in his mind palace, when Mrs. Hudson opened the door and shrieked. 

“John!” She gasped, her voice blocked by the walls. Though slight, it stirred Sherlock from his repose enough to notice John padding up the stairs.

“Finally, John,” Sherlock muttered, not bothering to move as the dog walked up next to him. “I’ve been waiting for—oh.”

He pulled the scarf off of John’s neck. It wasn’t _his_ blue scarf—the wear patterns were all wrong, and it was a slightly different material, barely noticeable—, but it was a very similar substitute. A note was carefully embroidered on the scarf, in white cursive letters:

_Learn to take better care of your pets, Brother Mine, lest you lose one. -MH_

Sherlock scowled and tossed the scarf in the corner of the room, pretending not to notice when John jumped onto the couch and curled up next to him. He also pretended not to notice his own hand petting John’s ears soothingly until they both fell asleep.

The case progressed gradually—frustrating slowly in Sherlock’s opinion. Despite a few skeptical pauses, John accompanied Sherlock each time Sherlock left the house without any further complications or abandonment. John quickly learned that sometimes Sherlock’s commands were suggestions, rather than strict _commands_ , and Sherlock begrudgingly worked to remember signalling John to follow when he left in a hurry. However, Sherlock was Sherlock; when his mind was engrossed by _the case_ , all else was trivial. 

This newfound understanding of Sherlock was tested on a crisp evening outside of Angelo’s. Sherlock had adopted an outside table, watching for his—murderer? Suicider? Inducer of suicides?—his killer, and John sat, stoic and steady beside him, watching people pass.

For his part, John had seemed to be recovering over the last month or so. He resisted the urge to shrink back when strangers patted him on the head, and he even licked Angelo’s hand when the jolly man had walked out with a bowl of water and two small chicken tenders for him. He adapted into a second set of eyes and ears for Sherlock, and though his skills had only been used once or twice, Sherlock had become perceptive to John’s senses, following his pointed nose towards sounds imperceptible to Sherlock but obvious to John, or towards faint scents Sherlock couldn't notice. John quickly became indispensable to Sherlock in a way that the man had never thought possible.

“Look across the Street, John,” Sherlock muttered, keeping his eyes on a taxi. John’s head cocked softly as he looked up to the sound of his name. With a dramatic _whoosh_ of his coat, Sherlock stood, muttering a soft, distracted command for John to follow under his breath.

\--

Sherlock walked at first, crossing the street, almost getting eaten by a big hulking rolling machine--a _car_ , he thought, was what the humans called it--as he walked. John wanted to growl at the humans inside of the car for almost eating Sherlock, but Sherlock kept going, and John followed at a steady trot to keep up with his long steps. 

Sherlock stopped for a moment on the sidewalk, putting his hands to his head the way he sometimes did when he sat still for hours, mouthing meaningless words John didn’t understand. Sherlock had no intention of sitting still, however, and Sherlock began running.

John ran after him.

John followed Sherlock as he ran into a building and up the stairs of a fire escape, the bumps rough and painful against John’s paws as he took the steps two at a time to keep up. Sherlock ran onto the top of the building—John had never been on the top of a building before—and pushed himself faster.

John reveled in the wind slapping past his face as he raced forward, his tongue lolling out of his mouth slightly as he ran. Sherlock suddenly jumped through a big gap between buildings.

John skidded to a stop before the gap. John wasn’t sure if he could jump across such a gap—his training had helped him learn how to crawl under things or run past them, but he never had much experience with long jumps like this.

“Come _on_ , John! We’re losing him!”

Sherlock thought John could do this. John trusted Sherlock.

John started running again, pushing off of the edge of the building with a large stretch. His paws met cement, and he kept running.

\--

“Welcome to London,” Sherlock scowled, slamming the cab door closed. 

He’d been sure that that cab carried his murderer, but the traveler—on business from California, a software designer straight from the airport—didn’t fit the killer at all. 

John stood next to him as the cab drove off, slightly sullen as Sherlock began walking back towards home.

“Got a good run out of it, at least, right John?” Sherlock grinned, leaning down to pet John’s ears in a rather rare act of affection. “Ready, John?”

John glanced up with bright eyes, taking off to follow Sherlock when he began to sprint again.

\--

John knew that this was a Bad Man. An Enemy Man, just like the ones in the Before Times.

John didn’t know if he was supposed to follow Sherlock, but he did. John followed the car that took Sherlock away, running stealthily as the car traveled down back roads. John kept hidden, the whole situation feeling awfully like one of the Scout Missions that Harry would give him in the Before Times. He followed behind Sherlock and the Bad Man, resisting a growl at the stinging smell of metal and the sight of the gun. But John was good, and John stayed quiet.

Sherlock and Bad Man sat down in a big room, with Bad Man’s back to John. John did not think that Sherlock could see him either, since John was lurking behind the wall, barely able to see, in the way that he had been trained to in the Before Times. 

The strong smell of poison hit John’s nose, forcing him to cower slightly as the Bad Man removed two bottles from his bag and sat them on the table. Sherlock and the Bad Man said some things for some time, before the Bad Man pulled out his gun.

John could not wait, not with the Bad Man holding a gun towards Sherlock. John _had_ to do something. He could not let Bad Man shoot Sherlock.

With a sudden, baying howl, John took off from the doorway, ears pinned as he rushed Bad Man. He launched at him, locking his teeth on Bad Man’s arm. The sudden, loud sound bounced through the walls, resonating and echoing ferociously. Bad Man’s coat was too thick for John’s bite to pierce skin, but something strange happened to Bad Man.

Bad Man fell on the floor, stuttering incomprehensibly. Vomit carelessly began to sputter and Bad Man coughed aggressively.

Sherlock rushed to his feet, glaring down at the dying Bad Man. “Your sponsor. Who was it? I want a _name_!”

The man sputtered and coughed, shaking his head mindlessly. 

“You’re hurting, but I can tell John to hurt you much more. Give me a _NAME!_

“ _Moriarty!_ ” Bad Man howled, halfway paralyzed with fear.

Bad Man twitched a few times, and slowly stopped twitching.

Sherlock stood still for a few minutes afterward, before nodding carefully and pulling out his phone. “Come along, John,” he muttered, walking out of the room.

John followed, staying closer to Sherlock’s feet than he ever had.

“That was good, what you did,” Sherlock said, starting down the stairs. “It was a fake gun, but still. Very good.”

Sherlock and John lurked around while big cars with bright lights and loud sounds clumped around the area. Sherlock spoke for a bit to New Man—Lestrade, John learned, was his name—and shouted words like “ruptured aneurysm” and “induced stroke” and “dog-sized handcuffs” before getting frustrated and stalking off.

Without waiting for instruction, John loyally followed after him, happy to follow his Sherlock back home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was previously posted under this account, but has been reposted as its own individual fic and set up in a series instead of chapters in one work. Sorry for any confusion!
> 
> This may be one of the very few one shots in this series that doesn't include a romantic partnership between Sherlock and John, so enjoy it while you can!
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed it :)


End file.
